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"This was yours. then?" Detective Young asked. Still holding it out as if he was showing something to a jury in a courtroom.

"Yes," I replied.

"And you gave it to Elliot Fletcher?"

I nodded.

"When exactly?" he asked.

Again. I looked up at Mommy first.

"When?" she repeated for Detective Young.

"A few days ago," I said.

Mommy released a trapped breath like someone who had just been given terrible news.

"When I was here earlier, you told me and Elliot's father that you hadn't seen him for a while," Officer Harold said, practically leaping at me. "Now you're saying you gave him this thing a few days ago. Why did you lie to us?"

I felt panic running down the sides of my legs, freezing them in place. by was this happening to me? If the spirits were protecting me, why did they let this happen? What was I suppose to say, to do?

I didn't look at Mommy. I shifted my eyes guiltily toward the floor and shrugged.

"Elliot made me promise not to tell," I said and recalled Mommy once telling me that lies pop out of people's minds like pimples sometimes.

I don't know what makes someone a good liar, if there is such a thing, but I suppose it has something to do with his or her ability to create, to perform, maybe even believe in the lie him or herself first. I thought.

"Why did he do that?" Detective Young followed.

"He was smoking something bad, and he said his father would take away his car if he found out." I said in a very convincing tone of voice. I felt confident that really wasn't a lie anyway.

"So? Why wouldn't you tell his father you had seen him?" Officer Harold asked, his face dark with exasperation and outrage, "You saw how concerned he was,"

I bit down on my lower lip and kept my eyes fixed on the floor. I couldn't think of any excuse that would make me look good or even make sense.

"Was it because you smoked something bad as well?" Detective Young offered.

I looked up quickly. Mommy's eyes hadn't changed, hadn't moved. They were so fixed on me, I felt like she was boring a hole through my forehead.

"Noble?" she said. "Answer the question."

I nodded. The detective's theory was an unexpected gift, a way to rescue myself.

"yes."

Both Officer Harold and Detective Young settled in the comfort of being right about me. I could see it clearly in the way they glanced at each other. They had probably discussed it before they had arrived at our door.

"But I didn't think anything terrible had happened to him." I added quickly.

"Tell us what occurred the last time you saw him." Detective Young said.

"We smoked that stuff in the woods, and then we parted and he started for home and I came home."

They stared at me, four eyes searching my face like spotlights sweeping over a prison wall, looking for cracks. I held my breath. Out of the corner of my eye. I could see a small movement in Mommy's lips. It was impossible to lie to her. No matter how good I was with other people.

"You didn't have any arguments or anything like that?" Detective Young asked.

"What are you suggesting? That Noble drowned him?" Mommy snapped at him.